An apparatus for recording a real time information signal, such as an MPEG encoded video information signal on a record carrier is known for example from U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,183. The record carrier in the said document is in longitudinal form. For disc like record carriers a format for recording information signals is known from EP-A 814 475. This format, which will be referred to as the DVD-format, uses a Program Stream format for storing Program Elementary Stream Packets. A Program Stream comprises a Program Stream Header, a Program Elementary Stream Header, an Application Header and a Packet Payload of 1948 byte. Application Packets in a real time stream of information signals, such as for example Transport Packets in case of a MPEG stream, may be stored in the Packet Payload of the Program Stream Packets. Such a Transport Packet is 188 bytes long so that with a required additional Time Stamp of 4 bytes, only 10 times 192 bytes can be stored in one Packet Payload of 1948 bytes, leaving 28 bytes unused. In addition, the Program Stream Header and the Program Elementary Stream Header contain additional Time Stamps (SCR and PTS respectively) which are mandatory in MPEG. This leads to a reduced efficiency with respect to complexity and storage. Furthermore Application Packets in case of Digital Video (DV) are 480 bytes long. In the Packet Payload only 4 such Application Packets can be stored, also leading to unused bytes. Further kinds of Application Packets are found for example with the ATM format. Therefore, it can be said in general, storing Application Packets in the Packet Payload of a Program Stream may lead to a reduced efficiency.
An object of the invention is to overcome the above mentioned disadvantages and more generally to overcome the problem of storing application packets from a real time stream on a disc like record carrier.